Satou Kazuma
Kazuma / Light Novel Satou Kazuma (佐藤和真) is the main protagonist of the Konosuba series and much of the story follows his perspective. He is a Japanese teen who died in a rather embarrassing way. After dying, he found himself in front of a goddess, Aqua, who offered him a choice: Be reborn as a baby without memories, go to "heaven" to live a boring afterlife or be reincarnated in a fantasy world being besieged by a Demon King. Due to his past life as a shut-in gamer, naturally he is all too happy to take the last option. To help in his quest, he is allowed to choose one "cheat" to bring with him. Kazuma proceeds to pick Aqua and are both sent to a fantasy world to begin a new life. Appearance Kazuma is a young man of average height and weight with short brown hair and green eyes. He often adorns a short green cape, white shirt, dark pants and leather boots. Before arriving to the fantasy world he wore a green tracksuit. Personality Prior to arriving to the fantasy world Kazuma was a shut-in who skipped school and played video games all day. Some of these traits are brought with him as he prefers lazing about at home instead of risking his life adventuring. He is sarcastic, cynical, blunt and often complains when things are rough such as during his time in great debt. However, he is not scared of work and works hard during this time to relieve his debts. His party and others have made note of his ability to be “reliable at critical moments” where he can be a surprisingly effective leader. His bravery also shows during these critical moments, even before his death he bravely saved a girl from what he thought was about to be a car accident. While he can be brave he is often lecherous to his party members, especially Darkness. He is a self-proclaimed “advocate of gender equality” meaning he does not act accordingly to cliche norms such as ladies first. While his party members give him a lot of trouble he does genuinely care for them and often enjoys his time with them. Story Starting a new life in a fantasy world After meeting an untimely demise, Satou Kazuma is greeted by the goddess Aqua who offers to send him to another world; a fantasy world besieged by a Demon King. He is given a choice of one item to bring to this world, and due to Aqua making fun of his death, he ends up choosing to bring Aqua to this world out of spite. The two are teleported to a town called Axel, a beginner town that is perfect for novice adventurers. When they join the adventurer's guild, it is revealed that Kazuma's stats are rather unremarkably average except for extremely high luck. Since they had no money or equipment when they joined, they were unable to go on any quests and had to resort to construction work and sleeping in stables to survive. Eventually Kazuma and Aqua decided to go on a quest to kill a few giant frogs. This did not go well and they almost get eaten, so they decided to recruit members for an adventurer party. They first meet and recruit Megumin, an archwizard who is capable of casting explosion magic. With Megumin they just managed to complete their quest, but with a lot of trouble because Megumin turned out to be uncapable of using anything besides explosion magic and she also would not be able to move after casting it. Kazuma only reluctantly let her join the party after she blackmailed him by making him seem like a sexual harasser. Later, a crusader called Darkness, approached Kazuma as she wanted to join his party. Kazuma quickly realised that she only wished to join his party because she's a massive masochist and was only intereste in joining because Kazuma was a rumored brute and sexual harasser. As a result he tried his best to refuse darkness. A friend of Darkness, a thief named Chris later approached Kazuma and offered to teach him a thief skill called Steal, which is a skill that benefits from Kazuma's high luck. Oddly when he tried the skill he only managed to steal the panties of Chris and Megumin, even further establishing him being a rumored sexual harasser. In an emergency quest involving the harvesting of flying living cabbages, Kazuma managed to gather a small fortune thanks to his incredibly high luck stat. At some point, a general of the Demon King Army moves in close by to Axel, intimidating low level monsters, the number of low level quests began to dwindle. Without any quests to do, Kazuma began a daily routine with Megumin. They would find a spot far away from Axel so Megumin could practice her explosion magic. Kazuma would then carry her back to town as Megumin would not be able to move afterward. As it turns out, the spot they had chosen was actually the home of the Dullahan Beldia, one of several Demon King Generals, who personally came to Axel to warn them to stop the explosions. Afterward he completed some more quests and met another person from Japan, Mitsurugi Kyouya, who was angry at Kazuma for taking Aqua with him. In a very short duel, Kazuma managed to defeat Mitsurugi and take his cheat item, the cursed sword Gram and sold it for a fair amount of money. Eventually Beldia would return to Axel, angry at Megumin and Aqua for continuing to terrorise his home with explosions. This confrontation would eventually escalate to the entire adventurer's guild of Axel fighting Beldia and his undead army. Thanks to Kazuma’s wit and leadership, and Aqua’s powerful water magic they were able to defeat Beldia, although Aqua’s magic ended up causing a lot of damage to the town. This eventually led to the party ending up in debt despite the huge bounty for defeating Beldia. Dealing with debt The winter is harsh in this fantasy world, and most adventurers are holed up until the spring. However, Kazuma and his party don’t have this luxury as they are stuck in debt unless they can earn some Eris to get by. One of the quests they take on is a non-threatening sounding quest to hunt snow fairies. However this would lead to Kazuma’s second death, at the hands of a legendary monster named The Winter Shogun. In the afterlife Kazuma meets Eris, the goddess in charge of overseeing this fantasy world, much like how he met first met Aqua during his first death. Kazuma was immedialty charmed by Eris who was much more compassionate toward him than Aqua was. Aqua is able to revive Kazuma though, paying no mind to any potential heavenly rules that may be broken. As for other quests: Kazuma and Aqua explore a dungeon where they meet a Lich named Keele and help him and his deceased wife pass on to the afterlife; during a visit with Wiz the party is tasked with exorcising a mansion and from their success the landlord allows them to stay in the mansion as their new home. Kazuma meets Dust and Keith in town looking into an alleyway at what appears to be a small cafe. It turns out this is a cafe run by succubi where many male adventurers gather for the services they provide. Kazuma waits for the succubus to arrive at his home later that night but the succubus ends up failing due to a barrier Aqua set up on the mansion. Finally, when Axel is under a new threat, the Mobile Fortress Destroyer, Kazuma successfully leads his party and the town’s adventurer’s in its defeat. Though it was defeated the threat was still not over as the fortress started a countdown to explode. The bomb, under Kazuma’s orders, was randomly teleported by Wiz to save Axel. However the location that this bomb is teleported to is inside the mansion of Alderp, a powerful noble and landlord, destroying his estate. Due to the destruction of the mansion, it lands Kazuma with a warrant for his arrest and thrown in jail. A trial is held against Kazuma who is suspected of being a either a terrorist or a minion of the Demon King’s army. Alderp rigs the trial however and condemns Kazuma to death. Darkness jumps in before this verdict is made revealing she is a noble from a powerful family and asks to postpone the execution. In return for this postponement, Darkness is pressured into marrying Alderp’s son, Walter. Walter is a completely different person to his father so Kazuma attempts to make the marriage meeting a success. But, due to Darkness’s twisted view on men, she doesn’t care for Walter at all; instead, she counters by convincing everyone that Kazuma is her lover. After the attempted marriage failed Darkness returned to Kazuma’s party; darkness’ father, Dustiness Ford Ignis, even gave Kazuma his blessing to look after her. Some time later Sena bursts into Kazuma’s home accusing him of summoning monsters in Keele’s dungeon. Kazuma comes to realize that Aqua’s magic she used in the dungeon is likely the cause of monsters vindicating the dungeon and that this event would be used as false evidence against him. Kazuma and his party explore the dungeon once more where they discover another Demon King General, Vanir. They end up defeating Vanir, and after being acquitted of his crimes Vanir begins working at Wiz’s magic where he later proposes a business deal with Kazuma. Kazuma ends up using his technological knowledge from Japan to develop some products to be sold in this new world. Vanir offers him a large sum of money for all of his products and patent rights which in turn gets Kazuma finally out of debt. Feeling set for life, Kazuma and party, with Wiz tagging along, decide to head to the hot springs city Alcanretia. This city serves as the main congregation of Axis cultits, a cult that reveres Aqua, much to Kazuma’s dismay. Kazuma, in an effort to retreat from the cultists, finds himself trying out one of the many hot springs in the city where he encounters a man who is later to be revealed as Hans, who is a Demon King General himself. With the assistance of Wiz, Kazuma and party defeat Hans and collect yet another high bounty after returning to Axel. Relationships 'Aqua' Aqua is the first person Kazuma met after his death and has been with him since the start of the series. They have a platonic brother-sister like relationship and fight a lot just like most siblings. It is clear that Aqua cares for Kazuma as he is the first she goes to if there is any serious problem and they trust each other greatly even if they do not want to admit it. 'Megumin' Kazuma was the first person to accept Megumin into their party as other parties saw her as useless due to her effectiveness being tied to a single Explosion spell a day. Their relationship began as routine walks to cast Explosion each day, where Kazuma would carry her back home after. Kazuma has since come to rely on her when a high value target needs to be taken out, such as a Demon King General. In later volumes, Kazuma and Megumin confess their mutual love, but their actual relationship is one of more than friends, but less than lovers. Despite their attempts to loose their virginity with each other, some strange force always seems to interrupt them before crossing the line, to the point where Kazuma thinks he's cursed. 'Darkness' Kazuma initially refused Darkness's advances to join the party, several times in fact, but she took it as some sort of reward due to her masochistic tendencies. After hearing about what happened to Aqua and Megumin during their quests with the frogs she wanted to party up even more. Kazuma eventually caved and the third and final member of the party joined. After many adventures, Darkness finally confesses her love for Kazuma, but he instantly rejects her by saying he is already in love with someone else. Darkness finally gives up on Kazuma, but not without taking his first kiss by tricking him. 'Chris' Chris was the first person to teach Kazuma specialized skills and one of these skills was the move Steal. During this training, Chris made a little game for Kazuma to use Steal on her and keep whatever he gets. Kazuma ended up stealing her panties and shamelessly made her give him her wallet to get them back. Chris was a testifier for Kazuma’s character when he was on trial for blowing up Alderp's mansion. However, she did not get to talk much about about Kazuma due to Sena cutting her off. After having an adventure together, Kazuma discovers Chris' true identity, which is no other than the goddess Eris, but Kazuma keeps this as a secret. Eris Kazuma first met Eris when he was beheaded by the Winter Shogun. From his short encounter with her he began to see Eris as a truly caring goddess and the main heroine of this story. Aqua seems to look down on Eris, claiming that she pads her chest. Kazuma does not mind this as while he was being revived he exclaims “I don’t mind if they’re padded!” After having an adventure with Chris, Kazuma discovers Chris is in fact Eris disguised as a human. Vanir Vanir was an antagonist to Kazuma and his party when they first met as he was a Demon King General at the time. After his defeat he broke his contract with the Demon King and became an attendant at Wiz's magic shop. Vanir makes treats with Kazuma for his Japan's items, but he always finds a way to trick Kazuma for money. Wiz Kazuma and his party met Wiz at the local cemetery where she was sending off spirits to the afterlife. Upon the discovery that Wiz is an undead Lich, Aqua immediately began trying to purify her but failed. The anime does gloss over these details however. Kazuma and his party would come to know later that Wiz owns a magic shop in Axel much to Aqua’s disdain. Under Kazuma’s lead Wiz assisted in the final blow in the fight against The Mobile Fortress Destroyer. She also accompanies Kazuma and the party to Alcanretia as Vanir wanted to get her out of the shop for a little while. It turns out there was a Demon King General name Hans operating there and she was key in the defeat of him. Abilities Basic Magic The most simple of magic, used to cast several weak elemental spells. :“I looked for the mage and swordsman from another party I met during the cabbage hunt and asked them to teach me the One-handed Sword and Basic Magic skill.” (Volume 1 Chapter 2 Part 5) :*'Create Water' – A magic spell that summons a small amount of water. :*[[Create Earth|'Create Earth']]' '- A magic spell that creates a small amount of soil. :*[[Create Wind|'Create Wind']]' '- A magic spell that creates wind. :*'Freeze' – A magic spell with a weak freezing effect. :*'Tinder' – A magic spell that creates a weak flame. Thieving Skills Learned from Chris. :*'Bind' – A skill that fuses mana into rope to tie up a target. This rope is also harder to cut or untie and the effect lasts longer the more mana that is infused. :*'Detect Traps' - A skill that allows the user to sense traps. :*'Disarm Traps' - A skill that allows the user to disarm traps. :*'Enemy Detection' – A skill that allows the user to sense nearby hostiles. :*'Lurk' – A skill that allows the user to hide in the shadows to escape from danger. :*'Steal' – A skill that allows a user to steal an item from a target. This skill’s effectiveness is dependent on the user’s Luck stat and the target's Magic Resistance. Archery Learned from Keith. :*'Bowmanship' – A skill that allows the user to use bows. :*'Farsight' – A skill that allows a user to see far into the distance. It also allows the user to see in darkness. :::“With the archer skill Farsight that Keith taught to me, I can see things in the dark. I’ve already tried this before. Even if there’s no light source and total darkness, I can still gauge the distance, where items are placed and their shapes.”(Volume 2 Chapter 2 Part 2) :*'Snipe' – A skill that increases the range of projectiles fired. The accuracy is proportional to the user’s Luck stat. Ignores weight of projectile. Misc. Miscellaneous skills learned through out the story. :*'Blacksmith' – A skill that allows one to forge and repair weapons and armor. Kazuma learned this skill to develop merchandise from his homeland to sell. :*'Drain Touch' – Learned from Wiz. An undead skill that allows a user to drain mana and stamina by placing their hand on a target. Mana and stamina may also be transferred from one ally to another. :*'High Luck' – Kazuma has an abnormally high Luck stat. In the fantasy world the Luck stat is generally seen as a useful stat for Merchants and not Adventurers. However, this stat is useful to several of Kazuma’s skills including Snipe and Steal. :*'One Handed Sword' - A skill that allows the user to fight with a sword. Quotes :"Minumum wage? Fair labor standards? What are those? Are they tasty?" :- Season 1 Episode 2 :"I yearn for true gender equality. I have no patience for one who talks about female privilege when it suits them, and then complains about someone 'not being a man' when it's convenient!" :- Season 2 Episode 2 Trivia :*Kazuma is voiced by Ryota Osaka in the Drama CD's